Given that natural selection is so powerful at optimizing complex adaptations, why does it seem unable to eliminate genes (susceptibility alleles) that predispose to common, harmful, heritable mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder? We assess three leading explanations for this apparent paradox from evolutionary genetic theory: (1) ancestral neutrality (susceptibility alleles were not harmful among ancestors), (2) balancing selection (susceptibility alleles sometimes increased fitness), and (3) polygenic mutation-selection balance (mental disorders reflect the inevitable mutational load on the thousands (...) of genes underlying human behavior). The first two explanations are commonly assumed in psychiatric genetics and Darwinian psychiatry, while mutation-selection has often been discounted. All three models can explain persistent genetic variance in some traits under some conditions, but the first two have serious problems in explaining human mental disorders. Ancestral neutrality fails to explain low mental disorder frequencies and requires implausibly small selection coefficients against mental disorders given the data on the reproductive costs and impairment of mental disorders. Balancing selection (including spatio-temporal variation in selection, heterozygote advantage, antagonistic pleiotropy, and frequency-dependent selection) tends to favor environmentally contingent adaptations (which would show no heritability) or high-frequency alleles (which psychiatric genetics would have already found). Only polygenic mutation-selection balance seems consistent with the data on mental disorder prevalence rates, fitness costs, the likely rarity of susceptibility alleles, and the increased risks of mental disorders with brain trauma, inbreeding, and paternal age. This evolutionary genetic framework for mental disorders has wide-ranging implications for psychology, psychiatry, behavior genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary approaches to studying human behavior. (Published Online November 9 2006) Key Words: adaptation; behavior genetics; Darwinian psychiatry; evolution; evolutionary genetics; evolutionary psychology; mental disorders; mutation-selection balance; psychiatric genetics; quantitative trait loci (QTL). (shrink)

In Gesundheitsberufen ist Ethik allgegenwärtig und erhält in der Ausbildung zunehmend mehr Gewicht. Dieses Buch nimmt eine Schwierigkeit sehr ernst, die in der Ethik häufig vergessen geht: Ethiktheorien im Berufsalltag anzuwenden, ist nicht so einfach, wie es auf den ersten Blick erscheint. Dieses Buch gibt allen in Gesundheitsberufen Tätigen eine Entscheidungshilfe für ethische Fragestellungen. Die Autoren führen ein Raster zur Analyse von medizinischen Einzelfällen ein, das stark anwendungsbezogen aufgebaut ist und eine praxistaugliche Reflexionshilfe für den medizinischen Berufsalltag bietet. Anhand dieses (...) Rasters stellt das Buch Fallbeispiele mit Lösungsvorschlägen für alle Berufe des Gesundheitswesens vor. Kontrollfragen und Arbeitsaufträge fördern das Verständnis und die Diskussion. Die Raster zur Fallanalyse stehen zudem auch als Download zur Verfügung. (shrink)

This response (a) integrates non-equilibrium evolutionary genetic models, such as coevolutionary arms-races and recent selective sweeps, into a framework for understanding common, harmful, heritable mental disorders; (b) discusses the forms of ancestral neutrality or balancing selection that may explain some portion of mental disorder risk; and (c) emphasizes that normally functioning psychological adaptations work against a backdrop of mutational and environmental noise. (Published Online November 9 2006).

It is with sincere appreciation that I commend this edited collection to readers of the AJTP. The collection meets the task of promoting lively discussion that addresses the interface between theology and philosophy, especially as shaped by empiricist, naturalist, process, and pragmatist traditions. As the most recent volume in the series Toward Ecological Civilization, it delivers papers from the Tenth International Whitehead Conference and Ninth International Forum on Ecological Civilization, held in Claremont, California, June 2015, thereby delivering on a second (...) focus for the AJTP: the development of liberal religious thought in America.The authors gathered in this collection take seriously the earnest and... (shrink)

A mesure que le XIXe siècle a donné la priorité à l'économie, on a cessé collectivement de vouloir rendre "l'homme meilleur". Mais avec la post-modernité, nouvel avatar d'une domination qui ne supporte plus qu'on lui apporte la contradiction, c'est en nuisant au "meilleur de l'homme" que l'économie poursuit sa conquête mondialisée. Pour ce qui est de cette nuisance particulièrement inconséquente, reconnaissons à la présente époque une efficacité inégalée dans l'Histoire. Quelque chose comme une volonté de mettre effectivement fin à l'Histoire.

Based on an analysis of the reports of twenty-eight national-level public commission inquiries into events involving ethno-national violence—drawn from five national contexts and arrayed over the course of the twentieth century—this article demonstrates the strikingly transnational character of these investigatory bodies’ attempts to authoritatively explain episodes of collective violence and to thereby restore governing legitimacy in the wake of violent crises. One of four distinct “logics,” or core explanatory frameworks, each associated with a particular mode of “racial power,” characterized a (...) diverse cross-national pool of violence commission reports during defined periods of the twentieth century. In revealing globally encompassing logics to what has often been framed as a national or case-specific phenomenon, the author shows how global ideational currents compose a key dimension of national political dynamics. (shrink)

This article elaborates on Wolfgang Schulze’s keynote speech of the same title at the 26th LIPP Symposium in Munich in 2019. It is based on the slides from his talk and various teaching materials, of which some figures have been translated from German to English before their inclusion in this article. While this article’s foundation rests on Schulze’s theories and research, we have done our best to build upon his work; direct quotes and key concepts of his will be cited (...) throughout the text. Schulze intended to write this article himself, but after his unexpected passing in early 2020, we decided to offer this contribution on his behalf.Research on taboo is widely spread across diverse academic disciplines that each attribute slightly, yet noticeably, different meanings to the concept. This article proposes an all-encompassing definition applicable to all socio-cultural contexts. To arrive at this comprehensive understanding, we first briefly survey the history oftabooand its linguistic study. Then, we present a formal and functional typology of circumnavigating taboos, taking into account the concepts ofmanaandnoaas proposed by Schulze (2019: 13, 15, 16). While the specific social restrictions resulting from tabooed relations vary from community to community, the purpose of taboo remains the same: social stability, protection and sustainability. Linguistic taboos contribute to these social functions by restricting the use of certain linguistic signs in certain situations. Such constraints necessitate strategies for avoiding taboo, including articulation shift, lexical substitution and the emergence of special languages, detailed here. (shrink)

If alleles that predispose to schizophrenia have reduced Darwinian fitness, their persistence in modern times is puzzling. Burns identifies the evolutionary genetics of schizophrenia as a central issue, but his treatment of it is not clear. Recent advances in evolutionary genetics can help explain the persistence of alleles that predispose to debilitating disorders such as schizophrenia, and can buttress Burns' core argument.

I very highly recommend Fundamentals of Comparative and Intercultural Philosophy by Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel, particularly with an eye toward the interdisciplinary foci of graduate programs that deal with critical thinking in globalized contexts. My enthusiasm for this book’s accomplishments are based on the intelligibility and clarity of the authors’ arguments, from which I refreshed my familiarity with theories of language and was able to learn recent developments and apply fundamental questions of translation, interpretation, and comparison that they (...) explored vividly in exemplary case studies. The success with which the authors lay out the fundamental issues of comparative philosophy, including the histories... (shrink)

Crespi & Badcock (C&B) convincingly argue that autism and schizophrenia are diametric malfunctions of the social brain, but their core imprinting hypothesis is less persuasive. Much of the evidence they cite is unrelated to their hypothesis, is selective, or is overstated; their hypothesis lacks a clearly explained mechanism; and it is unclear how their explanation fits in with known aspects of the disorders.

Influences on social traits involve a tangled interplay of genetic, social, and environmental factors. Moreover, there is increasing awareness that gene–environment correlations are real and potentially measurable. Such gene–environment correlations can mislead if they are uncontrolled and genetic associations are interpreted as being purely because of direct genetic effects. This complexity is cause for more and better investigation, not a reason to refrain from researching one of the potentially important factors (genetics) influencing trait variation.

Prior research has shown a pronounced self-orientation in students of business and economics. This article examines if self-orientation can be alleviated by a focus on prosocial values in business education. In a cross-sectional design, we test the prosocial behavior and values of bachelor students at the beginning and the end of a traditional 3-year business administration program. We compare their behavior with the behavior of two different groups: students from an ethically-oriented international management school and students from a social work (...) program of equal length. The results showed that students of business administration show less prosocial behavior in a dictator game than students in the other two groups. This difference is larger between final-year students than between first-year students. According to the results of the Schwartz Value Survey, the Inglehart Index, and a scale for preferences for distributive justice, students in the three disciplines differ substantially in prosocial values, but there is no significant difference between first and last semester students of the same discipline. We conclude that there is no transmission of self-oriented behavior through self-oriented values emended in traditional business education curricula. Instead, students seem to select academic programs according to their personal and preexisting social orientations. (shrink)

Ethik ist in Gesundheitsberufen allgegenwärtig, auch wenn das den Betroffenen nicht immer bewusst ist. Doch das Bewusstsein hierfür hat in den letzten Jahren deutlich zugenommen. Dies zeigt sich nicht nur auf politischer Ebene, sondern auch daran, dass in vielen grösseren Gesundheitsinstitutionen Ethikstrukturen geschaffen worden sind.Zudem wird der Ethik in der Ausbildung zu Gesundheitsberufen zunehmend mehr Gewicht eingeräumt. Im Folgenden gehen wir von unseren Erfahrungen als Dozierende für Ethik im Bachelorstudiengang Physiotherapie der Zürcher Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) in Winterthur aus. (...) Wir argumentieren für die für uns zentrale Schlussfolgerung, dass die Ethikausbildung in der Ausbildung zu Gesundheitsberufen viel interdisziplinärer gestaltet sein sollte, als sie das heute meistens ist. Denn Ethik ist, wie die Kommunikationskompetenz oder das Grundwissen zur Forschung, eine transdisziplinäre und interprofessionelle Kompetenz. Das gilt nicht nur für deren Vermittlung, sondern insbesondere für die medizinische Berufspraxis. (shrink)

The most interesting theme of the anthology is whether or not there is an essentially unique, or at least historically discernible "feminine" quality to women's artwork, and if so, what it might be. Authors include Elisabeth Link, Silvia Bovenschen, and Heidi Gottner-Abendroth. This book, written intentionally and recognizably in the female voice, while somewhat more germane to a European-oriented audience, makes a long-awaited and significant contribution to the theory of art and art criticism.